Open And Monogamous Couples Are Equally Happy

Trending News: People In Open Relationships Are As Happy As Monogamous Couples

Long Story Short

They say two’s company – but more than two might be better. As the stigma slowly lifts on open relationships, scientists have now found that those who have multiple partners are just as happy as monogamous couples.

Long Story

Open relationships might sound like an absolute minefield to navigate: do you just have a group text between everyone to make things easier? Can you get a joint Netflix account?

But they work well for some couples; in fact, it turns out that those in consensual open relationships are just as happy as – and in some areas, even happier than – those in monogamous relationships. This is according to a new study by researchers from the University of Michigan.

They analysed the relationships of more than 2,100 people. The participants were asked to rate their relationship in terms of satisfaction, commitment, trust, jealousy and passionate love.

The results showed no difference in terms of each group’s levels of satisfaction and passionate love, but those in open relationships reported higher levels of trust, as well as lower levels of jealousy.

And being in an open relationship doesn’t necessarily mean that polyamorists feel any less strongly about each other than monogamous couples. The researchers found that people in open relationships regard their primary relationship with more satisfaction, trust, commitment and passionate love than their secondary romantic relationships.

Overall, the researchers concluded that there are ups and downs to both relationship structures, but overall happiness wasn’t that different. The study, titled Investigation of Consensually Nonmonogamous Relationships, states: “We found few differences in relationship functioning between individuals engaged in monogamy and those in CNM (consensually nonmonogamous) relationships”.